Alberta reinstates 1976 coal-mining policy after outcry

‘We admit we didn’t get this one right. Albertans sure let us know that,’ says province’s energy minister

EDMONTON — Public protest has persuaded the Alberta government to U-turn on a major section of its economic road map and reinstate a policy that has kept open-pit coal mines out of the Rocky Mountains for almost 45 years.

“We admit we didn’t get this one right,” Energy Minister Sonya Savage said Monday. “Albertans sure let us know that.”

Savage announced the United Conservative government will reinstate a policy on coal mining in the Rockies and their eastern slopes that was developed after years of public consultation by the Progressive Conservatives under Peter Lougheed in 1976. That policy blocked surface coal mines in about 1.4 million hectares of wilderness home to endangered species and the headwaters of rivers depended on by many in southern Alberta. The policy was suddenly revoked last May, without public consultation, which stirred an undercurrent of protest that built into a tidal wave.

As recently as last week, Premier Jason Kenney called the policy a “dead letter” and suggested urbanites who didn’t support rural jobs in coal mining were in part responsible for fuelling the controversy.

Savage said the province’s energy regulator has been instructed not to permit mountaintop removal mines nor to issue any new exploration permits. No new leases are to be sold, although six companies with existing exploration permits will be allowed to complete their work.